Ai Maeda (actress)

Ai Maeda (前田愛, Maeda Ai^?, born 4 October 1983 in Tokyo) is a Japanese model and actress.

Biography

Maeda is notable for performing Shiori Kitano in the 2003 film Battle Royale II: Requiem, as well as for voicing the title role in the anime series Kino's Journey (for which she also performed a theme song to the series, "Beautiful World"). Her younger sister is Aki Maeda. Ai Maeda came into the spotlight when she was only 8 years old, appearing in a McDonald's commercial. From there her career started off. She modeled along with her sister Aki Maeda when they were young until she was 16/17 years old, when she starred in many movies and TV series.

Maeda has a height of 151 cm (4'11"). Her blood type is B and she is right-handed. Ai is skilled in the piano, Tate (fighting battles on the movie set) and the English language (Ai studied abroad in Canada for a year in 2000). She stars currently in the 3-D Ghost horror film Shock Labyrinth 3D^[1], which was directed by Takashi Shimizu.^[2]

She is also a graduate of Aoyama Gakuin University (Faculty of Economics, International Politics and Communications).

Career

1993: Debuted in a McDonald's commercial together with her sister Aki. She was in her fourth year of primary school.
1994: Ai and Aki joined the manager firm "Crayon".
1994 April: Became a regular cast of the show Appare-Sanma Sensei.
1997: Changed manager to "Granpapa".
1997: Formed the group "Pretty Chat" with Maya Hamaoka, Yuuka Nomura and Ayako Omura, releasing a single album "Wake up girls".
2003: On her 20th birthday she voiced her first anime Kino no Tabi.